


I Scream, You Scream

by Rehearsal_Dweller



Series: Twin Trade AU [1]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Gen, PARALLEL UNIVERSE!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-07
Updated: 2015-06-07
Packaged: 2018-04-03 06:04:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4089763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rehearsal_Dweller/pseuds/Rehearsal_Dweller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which there are gnomes, pretty girls, weird uncles, and new hats.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Scream, You Scream

**Author's Note:**

> This is the beginning of Max and Ursa's summer in Gravity Falls! It's a rough equivalent to Tourist Trapped in the Twin Trade AU, and should be a pretty good place to move forward from :)  
> If you're joining the TTAU party for the first time, know that this is a parallel universe where the prime universe's Author of the Journals has been hanging out for 30 years. They have a Stan surplus, and swapped junior mystery twins.

“ _Uuuuuugh_ ,” Max said dramatically, flopping into his seat in homeroom.

“Am I supposed to ask what’s up?” asked Merry, one of their classmates. “Because you might as well just tell me.”

“Uuuuuugh,” repeated Max. He dropped his face onto the table.

Ursa pulled the chair next to him out with her foot, then sat down ungracefully. “What my dear brother _means_ to say is that we got some news yesterday.”

“And that news is…?” prompted Merry.

“We’re missing your birthday,” Max said, with an air of pulling a bandaid off quickly. “To be fair, I think we’re also missing _ours_ …”

“Max,” Merry interrupted.

“We’re spending the summer in Oregon,” explained Ursa, running her hand through her hair. “Mom said that she thinks we don’t get outside enough –“

“And Dad called _his_ dad, and now we’re gonna be gone, like, _all_ summer,” finished Max. “We leave, like, the day after school ends.”

“Aw, man,” Merry said, disappointed. “We were gonna go see that ASL Hairspray in the next town over!”

“I _knooooow_ ,” said Max. “Mikey’s been talking about it for days. I was so excited.”

“You get excited about everything,” Ursa said, elbowing him.

Merry chuckled.  “Well are you sure that you can’t push back leaving a few days? Mom and Dad would totally make it an early thing if you’ll be gone, but I don’t think the run starts until the 9th.”

“We can ask,” Max said hopefully, “but they might’ve already gotten the bus tickets.”

“I bet you guys’ll have fun up there, at least,” Merry said, smiling. “And, hey, doesn’t your granddad run a tourist trap?”

“Yeah,” Ursa replied, “why?”

“We’re going on a big crazy family road trip this summer,” answered Merry, shrugging. “Maybe we’ll see you!”

\--

Despite much pleading, the Pines twins left for Oregon the day after school ended. They were pretty disappointed to miss their friends’ birthday, but that was mostly balanced out by the fact that Ursa had been offered a chance to be their Great Uncles’ research assistant for the summer, and Max was just excited to be somewhere _else_ for a while.

They were actually pretty excited, once they stopped moaning about not getting to see Hairspray.

“We just crossed the state line!” Max exclaimed, poking his sister’s side. “We are now _officially_ in Oregon!”

“Woohoo!” Ursa cheered, looking up from her book just in time to see the sign go by. “We’re still at _least_ an hour away though, so don’t get too excited.”

“Yeah,” said Max. “I knoooow. Don’t be a spoilsport, May-Bear.”

“Oh my god,” Ursa replied. She set her book aside and looked her brother in the face so that he’d understand the seriousness of the situation. “Oh my god, Max, I’m officially declaring a moratorium on the use of that nickname while we’re in Gravity Falls. Just this once, I’d like to have a chance to be _cool_ , y’know?”

Max put his hand on Ursa’s shoulder. “Urs, you’re never gonna be cool. But don’t worry, I won’t call you anything _embarrassing_. At least when there are witnesses.”

“I can live with that.”

\--

They were met at the bus station by their Granddad, Lee. He helped them to throw their stuff into the back of the car, all the while explaining that his brothers were on a research trip, but that they’d be back soon.

“- and if they’re not, we may have to run a rescue mission, but that probably won’t happen this time,” he finished, slamming the trunk shut and moving around the car to slide into the driver’s seat.

“Wait, what?” said Ursa.

“Rescue mission?” repeated Max.

“Don’t worry about it,” Lee answered, waving a hand dismissively. “Anyway, now might be a good time to tell you that Gravity Falls is a magnet for _really weird stuff_. Real really weird stuff, not just what we’ve got in the Shack. My brothers, they’re studying it, not just the normal stuff we told your parents about.”

“What kind of weird?” Ursa asked warily.

“Supernatural sh- stuff,” said Lee, shrugging. “Honestly, I don’t pay it that much attention. But that’s what you’re getting into, kiddo.”

“Good to know,” said Ursa.

Max made Ursa twist around in the backseat so he could braid her hair. “Okay, weird things, check. Good to know. What’s there gonna be for _me_ to do?”

“You’ll work in the gift shop when we’re short-handed, both of you, but otherwise you can do whatever you want as long as you don’t get killed or tell your parents,” Lee answered.

“Why do I get the feeling that we’re gonna be hearing ‘don’t tell your parents’ a lot this summer?” Ursa whispered to Max.

Max laughed. “That means it’s fun, May-B.”

\--

Once they got to the Mystery Shack, Lee gave them a tour.

Most of the first floor was dedicated to all of the fakey ‘mystery’ stuff, with the biggest rooms taken up by the gallery and gift shop. Lee and his brothers, their Great Uncles Ford and Stan, lived on the second floor. The attic had been set up for the twins; it housed a pair of old twin beds, each outfitted with a couple of blankets and a pillow, and not much else.

“I call that one!” Max exclaimed, launching himself at the bed pushed against the south wall.

More slowly, Ursa walked over to the other bed and dropped her bag next to the pillow. “So this is home now.”

“For three whole months!” Max said, bouncing enthusiastically.

“Potentially awesome,” said Ursa. “But that whole ‘rescue mission’ thing kinda makes me nervous.”

“Aw, don’t worry, Urs,” said Max. “Granddad was probably only trying to scare us. It is his _job_ , you know.”

“Yeah,” replied Ursa, chuckling uncomfortably. “I guess so.”

\--

“Mr Piiiiiines! Who are these children?!”

 _“They’re my grandkids, Soos. We told you they were coming,”_ Granddad called back from upstairs.

“Oh, heh, sorry dudes,” said the large man who had scooped up Ursa and Max in the hall just behind the “employees only” sign. He set them back down on their feet. “I’m Soos.”

“I’m Max, and this is my sister Ursa,” Max said brightly.

“You’re the handyman?” guessed Ursa, eyeing the tool belt around his waist.

“Yep!” Soos answered, grinning. “Hey, have you dudes met Wendy yet? She works the cash register in the gift shop.”

“Nope!” answered Max.

Soos indicated for them to follow him back into the shop.

Wendy turned out to be a tall, 15-year-old girl who greeted the twins with a lazy wave. She had her feet on the counter next to the register and a magazine open on her lap. She was _beautiful._

“Hey, Wendy! Look, children!” said Soos. “This one’s grumpy, and that one has a sweater!”

“I have _lots_ of sweaters,” Max corrected. “I make them myself. And Ursa’s not grumpy, she’s just tired. Aren’t’cha, Urs?”

Ursa rolled her eyes. “I’m Ursa, this is Max. We’re Lee’s grandkids.”

“Oh, cool,” said Wendy. “I live in town; this job’s the only reason I’m not at lumberjack camp in Washington.”

“Neat,” Max replied, and he really looked like he meant it.

Wendy grabbed Ursa’s hat – an old, brownish baseball cap that dad had jammed onto her head before they left for sun protection – and tossed it up onto a shelf just out of Ursa’s reach.

“Hey!”

“No hats inside, shortstuff,” Wendy said, grinning.

“ _You’re_ wearing a hat,” Ursa pointed out.

“Yeah, but I’m taller than you.”

Ursa jumped a few times, trying to reach the hat, but no luck.

“Alright people, I need someone to go put up these signs in the spooky part of the forest,” Lee announced, walking into the room with an armful of oddly shaped signs. “Eenie, meanie, miney – Ursa!”

Ursa groaned. “Ugh, _fine.”_

Lee dropped the signs into her arms. “Now, make sure they’re secure, but don’t waste nails. Those cost way more money than they’re worth. And don’t get tetanus.”

“Can I have my hat back?”

Wendy grabbed the hat and dropped it onto her head. “See ya later, shortstuff.”

20 minutes later, Ursa found herself a ways into the dark and kind of creepy forest, unsure of the exact route back to the Shack but sure that she could figure it out.

She heard someone shout indistinctly not too far away.

Warily, she approached the source of the sound. “Oh, thank goodness. Grunkle Ford, Grunkle Stan! You startled me!”

“Heeeey kiddo,” said Stan. “I thought you weren’t coming to town ‘till Thursday.”

“Uh, today _is_ Thursday, Grunkle Stan,” Ursa answered, rubbing the back of her neck.

“Oh.”

“Ursa, sweetie,” Ford said, “do your Grunkles a favour and run back to the Shack and tell Lee to get out the big first aid kit? We’ll be along in a little while.”

Ursa nodded, a little stunned. Both of her great-uncles were bruised, cut, and scraped, and one of them only had one sleeve left on his shirt. She ran back to the Shack, barrelling through the gift shop and into the gallery.

“Granddad!”

“I’m in the middle of a tour, kid,” Lee said, stepping away from the crowd of tourists taking photos of a chicken with antlers glued onto its head. “Whatever broke, just get Soos to fix it.”

Ursa shook her head. “No, I ran into Stan and Ford in the forest. They told me to come back and tell you to get out the big first aid kit. They didn’t look so great, Granddad.”

Lee frowned. “Soos knows where the kit is. I’ll shake off this group, and meet’cha in the kitchen.”

And that was how it started.

\--

Max made a point of flirting with anyone and everyone remotely close to their age, all in hopes of falling into an “epic summer romance.”

(Ursa liked to remind him that they were _twelve_ , so any so-called ‘romance’ was unlikely to be remotely epic by any definition, but Max was staying optimistic.)

This was why it was _suuuuper_ disheartening that the first time anybody flirted _back_ , they were flirting with Ursa.

And _Ursa_ had only been sort-of flirting in the first place to get close enough to investigate whether the guy was a zombie!

So not fair.

The guy – taller than Max, always wore the same beat up hoodie, said his name was Norman, but didn’t really seem sure – even asked Ursa on a date.

“It’s not _fair_ ,” Max told Wendy, flopping over the counter next to the register. “Ursa doesn’t even _like_ boys!”

Wendy chuckled and ruffled Max’s hair. “Don’t sweat it, Max. You’ll get the next one.”

“Re _lax_ , Max,” Ursa said, scribbling something in her brand new journal. “I’m not gonna date him.”

“You’re missing the point!” Max exclaimed. He picked up his arms and dropped them on the counter again for emphasis. “You’ve got a guy fawning over you and making you flower necklaces and Mikey and Merry went to Hairspray last night and what have I got? _Nuh-huh-huh-thiiiiing!”_ He slid down the side of the counter onto the floor by Wendy’s feet.

“Maxie, we’re only, like, two weeks into summer,” Ursa reminded him. She nudged him with her foot. “And I don’t even _want_ this guy’s attention.”

(For the briefest moment, her eyes flicked to Wendy, but an instant later they were glued to her book again.)

“That makes it worse!”

“Sorry, bro.”

Mere hours later, Max was regretting ever having been jealous at all.

Mainly because Norman turned out to be a stack of gnomes, who kidnapped Ursa in hopes of making her their gnome queen through a weird mass wedding.

Max had followed them into the forest in the Shack’s golf cart, after getting a few tips from Stan and Ford on how to deal with zombies – just in case. Of course, zombie tips turned out to be entirely useless when the gnomes revealed themselves; in the end Max just beat them away from his sister with a shovel, pulled her into the golf cart, and took off.

Who knew gnomes could join together to form crazy fusion gnome monsters?

They led it/them back to the Shack, not really knowing where else to go.

“What do we do, little miss scientist?” Max shouted to Ursa, who was looking around frantically.

“I – I don’t know!” she replied, running her hands through her hair. “I didn’t even know we _had_ gnomes!”

“Well something tells me that the shovel’s not gonna work on them now,” said Max.

“No kidding!”

“I saved your butt in the woods, it’s your turn!”

“Uh – uh…” Ursa stood stock still, her eyes darting everywhere. “Max, the leaf blower!”

“ _What?”_ replied Max, sure he’d misheard.

“The leaf blower!”

“That’s what I thought you said!”

\--

The twins trudged into the Mystery Shack gift shop dirty and bruised, but fairly happy.

“What happened to you two?” Lee asked, frowning.

“Gnomes,” Max answered dully.

“I think one of them _ate_ my hat,” added Ursa, feeling the top of her head.

Lee crossed the room to a display of blue hats on a shelf. He tossed one to Ursa. “Can’t have you gettin’ sunburnt. Max, g’head and pick something out, too. I, er, overstocked.”

Ursa pulled the hat on, then looked at her reflection in the now-dark window. “Cool. Thanks, granddad.”

Max picked out a grappling hook, because, well, why not?

\--

“That’s crazycakes _,”_ Merry said over video chat later that night. “ _You expect us to believe that?”_

Mikey just rolled his eyes.

“ _It’s the truth!”_ Max insisted.

“ _You’ll see,”_ added Ursa. “ _Gnomes. And who knows what else.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Keep an eye out for Mikey and Merry later in this series; they appear in the prime universe side of "Falling Hard" and may show up in another short between here and there, you never know. :D


End file.
